


There Was No Father

by sharkcar



Series: Clone Wars Tarot Cards [18]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Fate, Gnosticism, Hope, Slavery, Weequay, consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 23:05:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12804336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar
Summary: Shmi Skywalker can't seem to stop imagining a little voice. Although she's sure it's all in her head, she enjoys the company. It's one of her few freedoms in life to be crazy on her own.





	There Was No Father

[LINK HERE: The Empress](https://sharkcar.tumblr.com/post/167798420000/the-empress)

“Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom,” the tiny voice sang, trying out different tones. I don’t know why I thought of them as tones because I never heard the voice in my ears. Perhaps it was that I could sense them, and like with tones of sound, each had a different feeling. I felt that this morning the voice was happy, so maybe that meant that I was a little happy too.  
  
I knew the voice was all probably in my imagination. Probably a coping mechanism I’d developed after all these years of being a slave. There was so much I could have said or done that would have been dangerous, so I buried things deep down inside. We’d carry on whole conversations without saying a word. I suppose having a vivid imagination can be helpful to people who are imprisoned as I was. Daydreams helped pass the time.  
  
The little voice had taken on its own personality, often surprising me with the things it would say. I supposed the topics must be coming from deep within my subconscious, places I never even allowed myself to see. The voice asked the questions I didn’t dare.  
  
I hadn’t mentioned the voice to anyone, for fear they’d think I was crazy. Nevertheless, I didn’t try to make the voice go away. It was one of the few precious freedoms I possessed, to be crazy on my own. I wasn’t hurting anyone.  
  
I had just eaten and the baby was moving around in my stomach as the nourishment reached him. I’d had bantha milk this morning. The baby was always more active when I was able to get something filling.  
  
“Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom,” the voice continued. It wasn’t saying the word as a question. More, expressing admiration.  
  
In our first ‘conversation’, the voice had asked me what I was and I’d instinctually said that I was ‘Mom’. I suppose I had just imagined the voice as coming from the baby, since I’d never heard it before I became pregnant. The two things were connected for me, even though I knew the voice probably wasn’t real. The baby was. It was comforting to have something nice that was real. I tried to enjoy my time connected to him. The birth would bring the possibility of our being separated, either by the dangers of childhood, diseases and malnutrition were common on Tatooine, or if my slave owner decided to sell on. I didn’t know how long my child would be with me, but I was glad it was for a little while more.  
  
I was sitting in Gardulla’s greenhouse, since it had the best light. Most Hutts kept their homes dark and cool, but this wasn’t helpful if you needed to see what you were doing. The greenhouse was comfortable before the suns rose and made the humidity in the space rise. Gardulla possessed a greenhouse for growing the types of foods Hutts liked to eat on Nal Hutta, a swamp world. Gardulla’s garden had a pool where snails and toads and other life forms thrived. No one was usually up at that hour, so I had a few minutes to stitch my clothes. All of the things I had were large and ill fitting, as was normal for slaves’ attire. But as I was in the final months of my pregnancy, my stitches kept popping, so my clothes needed to be mended frequently.  
  
Marwa, one of Gardulla the Hutt’s Weequay bodyguards happened by the entrance to find me seated on the bench alongside the edge of the water. It was a place where Gardulla would sometimes sit in the evenings. The humidity helped her eczema.  
  
“Looks like you found a comfy spot,” Marwa leaned on the doorway.  
  
I had all the pillows I could find piled behind my back. Hutt furniture does not offer much in the way of back support. I looked up, surprised. Marwa hadn’t sounded like she was making an accusation, like she was about to order me off the furniture. So I kept on with my sewing. “It’s just nice to sit before I’m on my feet all day. My ankles can get pretty swollen.” I confessed.  
  
The voice in my head quieted. I almost imagined it was listening.  
  
Marwa crossed her arms, “So we’ve been taking bets. Do you know who the father is? If he raped you, we’ll kick his ass.”  
  
No man was ever allowed in Gardulla’s home. Aside from my condition, she had been unable to find any evidence that I helped someone to enter. She knew I couldn’t leave her palace because my restraining chip would have blown me to pieces. I believe she was waiting to see if the appearance of the child would give a clue.  
  
I looked back at my sewing, “There was no father.” At least, I had no memory of one. I can’t explain what happened. Maybe it was another coping mechanism. A memory of a trauma that I’d blocked out. But there was no encounter I could remember. No man. I never met anyone who I thought would believe me, since slaves are known to tell lies out of fear. But I don’t lie. Better for people to think you’re crazy than to know you’re untrustworthy.  
  
Marwa came in and lounged beside me on the bench. “Sure. Right. You don’t want him to be in trouble. He’d probably deny it anyway. Most places, he’d be believed over you. Nobody ever believes women. Especially not women who have done something so horrifying as have sex.”  
  
I laughed inadvertently at her sarcasm. I wouldn’t have dared to laugh if Gardulla had been around. Slaves were generally discouraged from laughing.  
  
“Gardulla would probably believe you, though. That’s one of the reasons I like working for Gardulla, she knows what self-righteous liars men are when they’re caught at things. Has anyone read its fate yet?” She asked.  
  
I knew Weequay practiced various forms of divination.  
  
I tried a smile. “No. I don’t think I’d want my baby to feel as if they are limited in what they can do or that the universe were somehow controlling them.” My child would have enough burdens in their life, just by virtue of my circumstances. It didn’t seem fair to saddle him with something as unavoidable as fate.  
  
“Maybe it’ll be something good, you never know.” Marwa was being friendly. I could tell she felt badly for me. Weequay women tended to be very brave. My meekness must have seemed pitiable.  
  
I didn’t want pity, so I tried to sound positive. “I have my hopes.” I believed that those were harmless. Just the little things I whispered to my child in my mind.  
  
“Hopes like what?” Marwa might have been asking the question as friendly conversation, the way she might do with anyone. But I had to be careful of what I said and to whom.  
  
“I... I don’t want Gardulla to think I’m ungrateful,” I confessed.  
  
“You hope your child gets freed,” Marwa whispered.  
  
I suddenly worried that she now had something to hold over me. “Please don’t tell her. She might sell him away.”  
  
Marwa shrugged. What was life or death to me was probably inconsequential to her. “Have the gods told you what you’re having?”  
  
Weequay were often called superstitious, but their culture acknowledged unseen forces and the ability to sense them. The Hutts scorned any such silliness, laughing off ‘sorcery’ and trusting only their own wills. But I knew that intuition was often a better gage of some things than what you could see and touch. Slaves tended to be hyper-conscious. We were alert to even the smallest details in our dealings with other beings. Sensing when someone was in bad mood could save you a beating or worse. Therefore, I could imagine that there were ways to know things without being told. You learned them by being conscious of the little voices.  
  
I decided Marwa might understand.  
  
“I don’t know. I just…feel it somehow.” I blushed in embarrassment, “I’d swear, sometimes I can hear his voice in my head when I talk to him.”  
  
She didn’t seem surprised. “So you think it’s a boy? Damn, I had girl in the betting pool.” Weequay gambled over anything.  
  
“I don’t know anything at all.”  
  
“Nah, why do you say that? Lots of women swear they can tell. The kid is a part of you for now, why wouldn’t you know him? Talking to him is good, too. Even scientists say that if you talk to them, they can hear you, once their ears grow in.”  
  
I never dared speak to my baby with my words, someone might have overheard. The thought that he could hear me worried me. I didn’t want him to hear the way people talked to me. I worried he might become afraid. Even though I rationalized that the voice in my head was not real, it was difficult not to think of it as a person.  
  
The voice had asked a lot of questions and I answered as best I could. When I’d answer back in my thoughts, I did my best to assure him that the universe was a wonderful place and that he should be happy about the life ahead of him. I didn’t want to scare him. I swore, my hormonal state had made me paranoid that if he heard the cruel things people said to me, he might not want to be born and I’d lose him. The stress of carrying him to term must have been pushing my emotions to the brink.  
  
My eyes welled with tears, but I pretended they weren’t there. Marwa pretended not to notice them and let me keep my dignity intact.  
  
My heart felt constricted as I remembered the voice saying that he liked the universe he was in. I told him that wasn’t the universe, where he was. He asked what it was, I told him it was me. He spent the better part of the day singing “Mom” over and over again. He stayed at it so tirelessly and enthusiastically that I’d had to go to clean the refreshers so that no one would see me laughing. Eventually, he fell asleep while I was sweeping the floors.  
  
I was pulled out of my memory when Marwa finally broke the silence.  
  
“I’ll read his fate for you. It’s harmless. Nothing binding. Just for fun. You don’t have to share it with anyone.”  
  
No one would have believed me anyway.  
  
She took out a pouch in which were several dice with marks on each side. She shook the lot and cast them on the bench. She noted their arrangement and read the configuration.  
  
“Poodoo!” She shouted.  
  
I jumped, startled. The baby quivered at the loud noise.  
  
“Am-Shak!” Marwa shouted again.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Am-Shak. The sky god, he throws lightning. His epithet is ‘the High One’. So that’s what we call this throw. See? High numbers on all the dice. I’ve never gotten one before, they’re really rare. The kind of power predicted here, I’ve never seen it look this way. It’s strong. This kid will probably rule the galaxy.”  
  
Fortune tellers often tell you what they know you want to hear. Usually to get more money. Since I had no money, I think Marwa was doing it to cheer me up. I was grateful for the act of kindness. It didn’t mean anything, I thought, most Weequay dice are loaded.  
  
I allowed myself a smile and a joke, “Well, when he comes back here to take me away to his castle, you’ll be the first to know.”  
  
“Like I said, it’s just for fun.” She walked away chuckling. “Just what the galaxy needs, another man walking around who’s out to control everything.”  
  
“Poodoo!” The voice in my head shrieked suddenly and I jumped again.  
  
Then I sensed amusement from the source of the voice as my adrenaline rush abated. I let out a nervous laugh, quickly covering my mouth with my hand. I looked around to be sure nobody had seen.


End file.
